


The Language of Flowers

by englishable



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:24:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4139190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishable/pseuds/englishable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A noblewoman must always know the language of flowers, which lets her say everything and nothing at once. That has always been Sansa’s way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Language of Flowers

…

“…And the buttercups, what are they meant to convey?”

“Wealth, which is likely why your ancestors planted so many of them.” The stone pathway crackles under their feet, her strides checked to match his own. “They’re also poisonous. We had a colt once who made himself itself sick from eating them.”

 “Ah. I could have guessed.” Tyrion cranes his neck up at the overhanging boughs, laden with white and pink flowers. A slight afternoon wind shakes them down like snow.  “Apple blossoms?”

Sansa tosses her head. In one chuffing breath, she blows away a petal where it has landed on her nose. “Admiration between friends. And they make a very nice tea.”

“Hmm.” He clasps one wrist as he walks, in mock severity, and looks about them until his attention falls on a flower growing in tall purple spikes. “Heather?”

“Oh, that’s for loneliness.”

She stoops then to pick several handfuls of thyme beside the fountain. Tyrion peers quickly down into a basket of herbs she carries slung over one elbow. He can recognize several of them, by now: rosemary for cleansing, basil to soothe the nerves, marjoram for the muscles, and arnica for the pain buried within scar tissue, but no heather. 

(There is a lone red chrysanthemum, though, which she had handed to him after clipping it by the Stone Garden’s front gate. He had pushed it into her hands again, unthinking and bemused, with something to the effect of  _I will drop it, my lady, it is safer in your keeping, I believe it would look fairer in your hair than mine_.)

Sansa rises again. Tyrion steps back.

“You certainly paid due diligence to your Septa’s lessons, my lady.”

“Less than I should have.” She fusses with the basket. “Septa Mordane believed every gentlewoman should know the language of flowers. It lets one say everything and nothing at the same time.”

“Still, it all strikes me as a rather restrictive mode of communication. It seems there ought to be some way for me to send a bouquet of spite and insult to whatever lord is making himself particularly obnoxious that season…Geraniums, possibly?” 

“That is something only you would concern yourself with, my lord.” She plucks a stray dandelion and taps it against her lower lip. “But in that event you’ll need lots of orange lilies, I think. And carnations in white and yellow.”

“And what would I be saying with that festive arrangement?”

“I hate and disdain you with cheerful dedication,” his wife announces, in a puckish tone, “and I hope every venture you make in the future is met with resounding disappointment.” 

“Excellent. I will have the gardener set to growing a whole plot of them immediately.”

The wind scatters more petals down around them, and Sansa laughs: at his remark or at the flowers clinging to her hair, Tyrion cannot decide.

 They fall into an easy, companionable silence – it is something that has been growing between them for months since the wars ended – as they walk another turn through the garden, and he waits without comment while she kneels before the garden’s great weirwood.

Upon returning, he goes to the library and rummages about for a book.

( _Chrysanthemum,_  the entry reads, in its matter-of-fact script.  _Optimism, honesty, joy in adversity, an invitation to new beginnings.)_

_…_


End file.
